Recollections
by Soul Jelly
Summary: 100-word Code Lyoko drabbles written to prompts from XANA's Lair. Drabble #96: 'Useful.' School holidays and no one around? The perfect opportunity for strange bonding experiences.
1. In the Blink of an Eye

_More writing from me! No no, don't sound too enthusiastic. :P A very lovely CL forum known as Xana's Lair, of which I am a happy member, hosts drabble challenges where you write a 100-word ficlet in response to a prompt. Naturally I'm giving it a go, and archiving my entries here._

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: In the Blink of an Eye<strong>

/

They celebrate XANA's defeat with drinks in the moonlight.

Aelita feels lighter than air, relaxing on the grass, watching William laugh at Odd's jokes. Then his eye catches hers. She frowns; for the briefest moment there is a three-ringed three-pointed target where his pupil should have been. William blinks, turns, and it must have been a trick of the light because then it is gone.

Yet in the darkest part of William's consciousness lurks a smoke-grey spectre. It has grown good at hiding; from multi-agent programmes, from the Lyoko warriors themselves.

XANA's time will come again. For now, it waits.


	2. Lost

**Prompt: Lost  
><strong>_OddxUlrich_

"I'm-"

Lips on lips then hands on shoulders; pushing, pushing him away.

"-Sorry."

"I thought..."

He shook his head, wouldn't meet the other's eyes.

"Oh." Then, "this won't change things, will it?"

"We'll always be friends."

But the air between them was thick with the memory of that kiss; it lay beneath the surface of every battle they fought together, every word exchanged. And Ulrich couldn't stand being suffocated beneath that lovesick gaze, not by his best friend.

He edged slowly away until the space between their beds became a hundred miles.

Whatever they had had before, it was lost.


	3. Lucky Charm

**Prompt: Lucky Charm  
><strong>**(Notes on the prompt: Make it anything to do with luck.)  
><strong>_OddxSissi_

"Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?"

An irritated sigh; she knocked the banana-turned-weapon from his hand.

"Get that thing out of my face, Della Robbia. Besides, I hated that movie."

Odd gasped in outrage.

"But-!"

"It sucked."

He pulled a face. "You have poor taste."

Sissi smirked at him. "Considering who I watched it with..."

"Hey!"

"Aw, so sensitive. But if it makes you feel any better, to answer your question... I do."

She blew him a kiss, a teasing promise of what was to come next movie-night, and left.


	4. I'd Rather Not Talk About It

**Prompt: I'd Rather Not Talk About It  
>Notes on the prompt: A story revolving around Jim and one of his stories from before the show that we never truly get to<strong> **hear.  
><strong>_A/N: My personal favourite thus far. I love Jim and was pleased he inspired this piece._

_/_

_The Marvellous Misadventures of Jimbo_; the fictional protagonist (to the uninitiated) who could do anything. Fighting fires and beavers, undercover and underwater. Trekking through blizzards. Incidents with spies and bad guys and a fair few explosions in each epic tale; that one ghost-hunting incident in Book Four. Not forgetting his stint as a disco dance sensation.

And – not mentioned – bestselling children's author.

Jim closed the book and placed it back on the shelf amongst the others. The name on the spine, "Anonymous", silently kept his secret.

Why talk about any of it, especially when writing would do?


	5. Picture

**Prompt: Picture  
><strong>_AnteaxFranz_

_/_

"Hello, Franz."

He smiles back at her in sepia from behind dust-coated glass and she runs a fingertip over the bearded face, wiping away the tear that splashes onto the frame. His smile is frozen in a happier time, years ago. A time before supercomputers, before frenzied escapes from men in black, and during a life she knew, now that she was free, she could never return to.

The photograph returns reluctantly to the box of old relics. The door is closed and Antea returns to the comforting brightness of her new life.

New name, new home, new pictures.


	6. Returnings

**Prompt: Returnings**

/

They creep me out.

When Naomi leans over, Odd's holding out a pen before she even opens her mouth to ask. Yumi steps calmly aside as Nicholas trips on his shoelace; Michael gets a shirt covered in spaghetti instead. Ulrich looks up expectantly in Biology; a second later he is called on and gets the answer right. Jérémie watches an unexpected downpour with a knowing look.

Huddled together, conspiring in their circle of secrets, laughing over some stupid private joke.

It's like they know everything before it happens. Which is impossible, of course.

They just creep me out, that's all.


	7. Friendship And Food

**Prompt: Friendship and Food**

/

"Odd, what on earth is _that_?"

"Can't you tell?"

"It looks kind of... abstract?"

"No!"

"Uh... a Kankrelat?"

"Come _on_, Einstein."

"No seriously, I give up. What is it?"

"It's you! In pizza! See how I made the hair out of mozzarella?"

"So _that's_ what that part is. Well, thanks, I guess."

"Consider it a peace offering after what happened yesterday."

"A better one would just be not to spill hot chocolate all over my homework project again."

"Just take some pizza Einstein."

"...It is edible right?"


	8. Delmas Knows

**Prompt: Delmas Knows  
><strong>**(Notes on the prompt: A drabble about Mr Delmas.)  
><strong>_/_

Jean-Pierre Delmas knows everything there is to know about running a school.

Kadic is his pride and joy. He loves to learn, himself; knows how to inspire staff, manage unruly students, mentor those who need guidance. He can draw out the best in everyone, ace inspections and make a school a second home to those who attend.

But when there comes the long wailing cry of;

_"Daddyyyyyyy!"_

Delmas puts his pen down, sighing, and moments later his tearful and red-faced daughter bursts into his office.

Delmas knows a lot about most things.

Except how to handle his teenage daughter.


	9. Pop

**Prompt: Pop  
><strong>_Jean-Pierre, Suzanne, Jim_

_/_

_Pop_ is a champagne cork flying; _clink_ three glasses in elderly hands that make a silent toast. (Here's to a good run.)

They savour each sip, prolonging the end but, eventually, they have to go.

The staff-room is barren, the classrooms stripped of charts and posters, and the main doors gape open, ushering them into the gathering darkness. Rearview mirrors catch lined faces and sad smiles, armfuls of chemistry sets and sweater vests.

He'll retire. She'll teach elsewhere.

And he's already filing Kadic under his list of previous jobs, the ones he'd rather not talk about.

(Talking won't do it justice.)


	10. Wrinkle

**Prompt: Wrinkle**  
><em>OddxSissi<br>A/N: As requested by Starke. :D_

**/**

Maybe it was the summer sun filling her with a playful kind of warmth, or the contentment that freedom and friends offered. More likely, the boy sprawled out beside her had rubbed off on Sissi more than expected.

Whatever it was, she found herself eyeing tanned skin exposed by a ridden-up purple shirt. She reached out, poked him just under the ribs; he flailed, screaming surprised indignation. She didn't relent, and they grappled in the grass, Odd's begs for mercy dissolving into breathless laughter.

And they were both vain, but right then neither cared about the wrinkles in their clothes.


	11. A Different Meeting

**Prompt: A Different Meeting**_  
><em>

_/_

Mr Ishiyama sprained his ankle on the same day Mrs Stern went into labour.

Takeo grumbled about hospital waiting rooms and ruined house-hunting ventures; Akiko consoled herself with vending-machine coffee. Yumi toddled away unnoticed, drawn to a quiet room, pastel-coloured, filled with cots.

Tiptoeing, she peered into the closest one. A tiny baby with merely a tuft of light brown hair reached up and instinctively clutched her finger. Yumi smiled, the baby gurgled, but then Akiko appeared, frantic. When the door closed behind them Ulrich began to cry.

They were too young to remember the first time they really met.


	12. Monster

**Prompt: Monster  
><strong>_Jérémie, XANA_

_/_

They say he who fights monsters should take care that he does not himself become one.

The darkened room is his lair, revenge his sustenance. Each keystroke punctuates another facet of his rage; he will not be bested, nor defeated. Grades mean nothing now. Friendship wastes precious time. His former reason for fighting stands forlornly outside his door but he won't speak to her. He snaps at them all; skeletal, withdrawn, obsessed.

A hollow shell may be stitched together with good intentions but eventually they, too, crumble.

When XANA is slain, all he needs do is look in the mirror.


	13. Dark Instinct

_A/N:Yeah yeah, hiatus-schmatius. :P I'm really burned out on major projects, but it's catch-up week for the drabble challenges on XL so I'm using them to keep in practise whilst I take a break from writing anything substantial._

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: Dark Instinct<strong>

**/**

This dark instinct brings him alive.

He is guided always by the omnipotent orb as it waxes and wanes, coaxing him at its fullest into the chill night. Kiwi, ever loyal, accompanies him; together they toss back their heads with bared, inhuman teeth and howl to the moon.

Fights on Lyoko sing to the creature within (lupine and feline, magnificent and terrifying) at once sating the need for bloodshed and allowing the darkness to thrive.

And yet Lyoko almost gave him away, but it wasn't too hard to convince the others that the wolf was just a fuzzy purple cat.


	14. Future Jérémie

**Prompt: Future-Jérémie**_  
><em>

**/**

For all his logic, he fears death.

It sneaks upon him with the passing of years, claiming all his old friends. It chips away at him, scoring lines in his face, making itself evident in every thinning white hair. He's afraid. Of nothingness, of life's work incomplete, of his name fading on another's breath for the last time, rendering him a forgotten memory.

The factory welcomes him back, watchful, silent. He steps into the scanner, eyes closed, heart drumming up a rapid rhythm against his ribcage.

Lyoko is empty, ghostly.

And safe.

Virtual existence is _something_, if only barely existence.


	15. Turning Tides

**Prompt: Turning Tides  
><strong>_OddxYumi_

_/_

She finds him by chance when the school years, long over, have taken friendship's close ties with them. He's almost unrecognisable, blond hair cropped short, but something alights in those slightly bloodshot eyes.

He turns from the ring on her finger, a sparkling reminder of one success that evades him, and the smart business suit, another.

Ever tactful, she doesn't ask what changed, what life did to their resident joker to steal his laughter. Instead she says something flippant, inconsequential, and he smiles faintly though she doesn't think he even heard it.

But she is glad to see him, too.


	16. Standoff

_A/N: Let's try an ambitious genre, she said. Sure, I'd love to do a Western, she said. (Yeah, this was much more difficult than I thought, but a worthy challenge and very fun to write.)_

**Prompt: Standoff  
><strong>**Notes on the prompt: Make it a Western!  
><strong>_Odd, Taelia_

_/_

"Hey lil' lady."

She scowled and pointedly ignored him. Blistering sun had left her face pink as her hair; dust from the sandy ground clung stubbornly to her boots. He stuck out, a sore thumb, purple against the desert landscape.

"Not a talker, eh?" He shrugged, tipping back the brim of his Stetson. "You know, you kinda remind me o' someone. She'd not travel these parts alone though. It's dangerous for a-"

Her hand flew to her holster. Pulling the trigger three times in quick succession she left him, wordlessly, with three bullet holes through his hat.


	17. Computer Codes and Fans

**Prompt: Computer Codes and Fans  
>Notes on the prompt: Has to be Jérémie-Yumi.<strong>

**/**

Yumi sprawled on the bed, chin hanging over the mattress edge as she watched intently. A concertina-fold of paper fanned cool air onto her face and she turned it absently in Jérémie's direction, grinning as wisps of his blond air drifted in the faint breeze.

Jérémie barely noticed. Cross-legged on the floor, he bent over his latest contraption and with absolute focus slotted a minute microchip perfectly into place. At last he gave a satisfied stretch, looked up and returned the smile.

It was a peaceful summer, shared gladly, and defined by a love of quiet contemplation and companionable silence.


	18. Friendship

**Prompt: Friendship**

**/**

On their first ever day at Kadic Milly announced that she was going to win the Pulitzer someday, and everyone laughed. Everyone, that is, except Tamiya, who gave a friendly grin across the classroom, sat by Milly at lunch, and offered her half her chocolate.

In return, Milly was there when Tamiya got homesick, sitting with her when she cried.

Grateful for _that_, Tamiya helped Milly photocopy the first ever Kadic News. Milly asked Tamiya if she wanted to join her in writing the next one.

At some point, it stopped being about repaying favours and became about being friends.


	19. Miss Popularity

**Prompt: Miss Popularity**

**/**

"I like you."

"I like you too."

"I like you more."

"I like _you_ more."

"No, _I_ like _you_ more!"

"Well I like you the most."

"And I like _you_ the most times infinity."

"I like you the most times infinity plus one..."

It was an argument solved only by a digression into kissing, at which point Yumi, Ulrich, Jérémie and Aelita turned away with shared looks of despair. The agreement amongst all of them was unanimous; Odd and Sissi had in fact been much more tolerable when they hated each other.


	20. Second Chance

**Prompt: Second Chance**  
><em>The Della Robbias, Kiwi<em>

_/_

"This is an... unusual one. He... well... We're not even actually sure what breed it is."

"I want him!"

"You would, wouldn't you Odd? Weird kid."

"Adele, leave him alone."

"But Dad-"

"We said he could choose any dog he wanted."

"But it's so... scrawny. And weird ...Like someone else I could name, ha ha."

"_Adele_!"

"Sorry."

"Dad, can I get him, Dad, please?"

"Are you sure, Odd?"

"Positive."

"Hmph. Only Odd could love such a mangy rescue dog."

"Right. So if I don't, who will?


	21. Like the Movies

**Prompt: Like the Movies**  
><em>Emily, Ulrich, Sissi<em>

_AN: Stonecreek made me ship this with his fic "Just Desserts". So yeah._

**/**

Emily had _tried_ to like Ulrich, she really had.

It was the obvious, safe choice, verified by all the other girls. Muscled, lean; tousled hair, deep eyes. And unlike many of them, Emily had her chance to make it happen.

Unlike many of them, she blew it.

One torturous week of awkward tension, laughter so forced it grated on the ears. It wasn't a movie-ending of sporty, hot guy falls for shy, bookish girl, and certainly it was never a story about love.

Her thoughts, always, lay with straight dark hair, soft skin and eyes outlined with too much kohl.


	22. Thirteen

**Prompt: Thirteen**

**/**

It all comes down to William in the end.

William, who salvages a rusting metal pole from the debris, testing the feel of it  
>(slim yet weighty, cold against his palm)<p>

Hesitates  
>(just a fraction)<p>

then brings it bodily

down.

_Smash! __Crash!_

(in time with anguished yells)

Metal and glass crunch beneath his boots as loose keys scatter and the sounds of thirteen strikes echo from the walls  
>(He doesn't wait to hear them fade)<p>

Later, the others find the ruins and openly mourn the final end to their adventures.

(And alone, in secret, they breathe their sighs of relief.)


	23. The Road Not Taken

**Prompt: The Road Not Taken**  
><em>JérémiexAelita<em>

**/**

'Methods of Theoretical Physics' was, undoubtedly, Jérémie's favourite class.

Eager freshman, he sat front-centre of the lecture hall paying rapt attention; not so much to Ms Schaeffer's patient explanation of approximating definite integrals, as to how projector-light illuminated her hair, the brightness of her smile. Their eyes met; he ducked, blushing, behind his laptop.

Her father had declined work on some military project, or so the rumour went, to spend more time with his family. A choice which had, ultimately, give Jérémie an incredibly inspirational teacher.

And age gap be damned; after he graduated, he'd ask her out for coffee.


	24. Dark, Light

**Prompt: Free choice; 2x50-word drabbles on prompts of your own choosing.**_  
><em>

**/**

**Dark**

"Not getting up today." Yumi's voice, muffled by blankets.

"I'm not leaving," Ulrich replied, settling beside the wall.

"Everything seems... bleak, and hopeless. Dark."

He remained, soothing balm on dampened spirits and awash in sunlight spilled from the window, and understood what she meant.

"Tomorrow will be better," he said.

/

**Light**

They watched raindrops race patterns down the pane as hands reached across the small space between them and fingers subtly intertwined.

She caught his eye, smiling a bright smile more splendid than any flash of thunder.

"You were right. Things look better today," she told him.

"I'm glad."


	25. Plague

**Prompt: Plague**

**/**

It began with a slight cough and a burning itch on his forearm.

By nine thirty he was pale and bed-ridden, and by twelve p.m. the entire school was quarantined. The merciless spread of infection spared few, grinding the world to a halt; those not claimed by fever succumbed to panic.

They found two students in the abandoned factory across the river. His hair was matted over his face and the pale skin of her wrist hid a helplessly weakening pulse.

It was the fastest spreading virus in history, they said.

And on Lyoko, all of the towers glowed white.


	26. Rumble

**Prompt: Rumble  
><strong>_William, Aelita_

/

His world was shattering, a terrifying Armageddon of fallen buildings, glowing eyes, rumbling like thunder.

William had failed at being a hero; Yumi had disappeared, he hadn't seen Odd or Jérémie; even Ulrich was lost somewhere in that chaos.

He clung to Aelita, his body covering hers against falling debris, but his was the one shaking. Gently she pried herself from his grip and her lips grazed his skin, reassuring, bringing life back to the pallor of his face.

With one last glance back, she too ran, to once more wash away his fears with the sweeping reversion of time.


	27. Alternate

**Prompt: Alternate**_  
>XANA<br>_

/

_Blok, forward, two spaces._

He issued the silent command, watched with satisfaction as it was obeyed. On the dim screen, _they _moved. Those children, who he often wondered about, and the platform that connected them all.

Frantic typing, sweat on his brow, but all for nothing, as his monster army fell and the all-too-familiar words flashed his doom upon the screen.

_Aelita: Code: Lyoko_

At 1PM (lunch hour over), he closed the browser window. Paperwork sat incomplete on his desk. His coffee was cooling.

And he continued to be bested in an online game by a bunch of nerdy kids.


	28. Last Call

**Prompt: Last Call**

**/**

"C'mon, pick up alread-"

"Hi Ulrich."

"Yumi! How's college?"

"Great, thanks. Listen... we need to talk."

_Shit._

"...What's up?"

"Ulrich... this isn't working out."

_Oh no._

"You've met some cool college guy haven't you? Yumi, I know the long-distance thing is hard but we _can_ make it work, we will, please-"

"_Ulrich_!"

"I... yeah?"

"I just meant the phone bill is getting ridiculous. I'm gonna start emailing you more instead, okay?"

"Oh. Yeah! That's fine."

"Had you worried there, huh? Love you, Ulrich."

"Love you too Yumi."


	29. Girls' Day Out

**Prompt: Girls' Day Out  
><strong>_A/N: Check out Adventurer 411's 'Novella', Chapter 50, for a wonderful prequel to this drabble._

**/**

Yumi and Aelita returned just before dinner.

"Hey! How was your-" Odd looked up and blinked.

Aelita's hair was soaked, her backpack bulging; a medallion and smudged, intricate patterns adorned her neck; Yumi was plastering band-aids onto her cheek, examining one of many scratches on her green-paint-splattered jeans. They chatted animatedly, oblivious to their muddy footprints.

"What-" Ulrich began as they sat down beside him. His eyes widened; something suspiciously jewel-like glinted in Yumi's navel.

"Oh, you know." Yumi shrugged. "Girl stuff."

There was silence. Then:

"Aelita?"

"Yes, Odd?"

"Your skirt's on fire."


	30. Future Aelita

**Prompt: Future-Aelita**

**/**

She's grown up now, and Franz has missed it all.

Jérémie and the others saw her off to college, planned her eighteenth birthday, were there when she needed advice. They tease her, make her laugh, heave dozens of boxes and suitcases up five flights of stairs to the small apartment building that is Aelita' new home, where Ulrich and Yumi get drinks and Jérémie and Odd argue over arranging furniture.

Memories of her parents are a still-tender bruise, receded to a dull ache that hurts to touch. But as Aelita watches her friends, she thinks,

_My family is right here._


	31. Dreams

**Prompt: Dreams**  
><em>Clone William<em>

/

William (not William, not really, but not allowed to say so) starts out as a shell filled with a handful of foreign memories. Everyone speaks in riddles. There's only confusion, sadness.

Not-William adapts. He finds food, people, entertainment he likes. Future and fear are unfathomable concepts. There's only the continual processing of knowledge, with happiness creeping in at the edges.

Not-William feels the sun on his face for the last time when he disappears. He dissolves into nothingness, and the wind snatches his last thought (one desperate, hopeless dream, really) throwing it towards the azure sky.

_(i wanted to live)_


	32. Angst

**Prompt: Angst**

**/**

Someone died yesterday.

I didn't know him, and I don't think they did either. He was just some guy walking in the street one morning, and he just... stopped. Stopped seeing, breathing, living. A senseless death, so shockingly unexplainable that it made the papers.

There was a roadside memorable, where it happened, right near school.

I watched them approach, saw four bouquets laid reverently upon the pavement. They didn't notice me, too absorbed in grief for this stranger.

They looked tired, bowed beneath the weight of emotions they couldn't bear. Like sad resignation, deep-set fear... and something disturbingly like guilt.


	33. Your Tale

**Prompt: Your Tale  
>Notes on the prompt: Write to The Uncanny Valley song (Criminal Minds).<strong>

**/**

Sissi lifted her old dolls carefully from where they lay, buried in layers of dust and memories.

They looked okay on her shelf. Even better though, with faces wiped clean and brushed hair. Their outfits were nine years out of date so she made some more, cursing over pin-pricked skin and tiny needle-eyes, talking to them as she whiled away slow afternoons. Her new friends listened silently, content with the stories she made for them.

Their old names were lost to her. She gave them new ones. New names to match their new colours; purple, black, pink, blue and green.


	34. Twelve

**Prompt: Twelve**

**/**

The cupcakes were stacked high; a delectable rainbow of buttercream frosting and sprinkles. Ulrich and Yumi felt sick just looking at it but Odd was already drooling.

Aelita held the stopwatch. "Ready?"

Odd nodded. The school-wide record for 'Most Cupcakes Eaten in a Minute' practically had his name on it.

"Aaand...Go!"

Jérémie stumbled in tiredly, oblivious to everything but his growling stomach. Computer codes still running through his head, he wordlessly grabbed a cake, and another...

Sixty seconds and twelve cupcakes later, Odd's title was lost.

Jérémie wiped frosting from his mouth, and fell asleep on the table.


	35. Unity

**Prompt: Unity  
><strong>_A/N: Massive writer's block lately. I feel as though things aren't up to my usual standard, and updates are practically non-existent, and I can only apologise._

**/**

The best meteor shower they'd probably ever see in their lifetimes, and they had to do an assignment on it. Typical, Ulrich mumbled as Mrs Hertz's class filed out into the grounds, holding notebooks in numb hands as they stomped warmth into their feet.

Then... silence. Sissi stopped complaining. Hervé and Odd stopped bickering.

For an hour or so, the world belonged to that one small class huddled together on the playing field. All feuds and discrepancies temporarily dissolved, forgotten as their discomfort and cold-visible breath, everything insignificant beneath that pitch-black sky alive with light.

Suzanne nodded to herself, smiling.


	36. Hallowe'en

**Prompt: Hallowe'en  
><strong>_A/N: Enjoy your spooky shenanigans, everyone. :)_

**/**

Outside the wind howls and rain drips relentlessly, lethargically, down window panes, in time with the pattering of passer-by footsteps. The ominous rustling of dead autumn leaves fades in and out of silence.

It's an evening where spirits real and imagined parade the night, a time for buildings steeped in history to come alive and houses decked in plastic spiders and pumpkins to be haunted by childish spectres in store-bought masks.

Indoors, flickering television light chases away ineffectual shadows. Five teenagers watch stupid movies, laughing between mouthfuls of chocolate, disctinctly unafraid.

They already know what real fear is, after all.


	37. Cover-Up

**Prompt: Cover-Up**

**/**

It's not easy, keeping secrets.

The lies, the alibis, the getting up, going on. Tendrils of deceit consume them, strangling their ties with everyone they know, a fact that grows a little more unbearable in each _"how was your day?"_ /_"it was fine"_.

Unspoken confessions churn inside them like vomit forced down, and it's an overwhelming need to _talk_ that has them cry out in their sleep, the desperate mantra of restless souls yearning to be heard.

Secrets become responsibilities, morphing at last, inevitably, to a lead-weighted burden.

They slip through death's grasp once more. Force tight-lipped smiles. Keep going.


	38. Pace

**Prompt: Pace  
><strong>_A/N: This goes out to all the animators who ever forgot to colour Odd's midriff._

**/**

"Hey, Odd, dunno if anyone's told you this already, but... uh... your stomach's showing."

Odd shrugged, hands on hips, fingertips curling over the strip of exposed flesh at his waist. "I know," he replied simply.

Ulrich opened his mouth, closed it again, and gestured to Odd's purple top. Finally he said, "Don't you normally wear a shirt under there or something?"

"Eh, I wanted a change of pace. The girls all do it!"

"Yeah, _girls_."

"Uh-huh, and no wonder! It's kinda cool having a breeze on your tummy. Ulrich, you should try-"

"No."


	39. Shout

**Prompt: Shout**

/

"I'M TIRED OF THIS, YOU HEAR? I'M FIGHTING EVERY DAY AGAINST A PSYCHOPATHIC ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT WANTS TO KILL ME, I DON'T KNOW IF YUMI EVEN LIKES ME AT ALL, I HAVEN'T STUDIED FOR THE TEST ON TUESDAY. AND I HAVE A HUGE ZIT ON MY FOREHEAD THAT ODD KEEPS TRYING TO POP IN MY SLEEP."

Surrounded by the wreckage of XANA's latest attack and the gawping Kadic populace, he breathed deeply and held his phone to his ear.

"Jérémie."

"Feel better, Ulrich?"

"I guess. Say... We _are_ returning to the past on this one, right?"


	40. Resolution

**Prompt: Resolution  
><strong>_Yumi_

**/**

She can't sleep.

Nothing new there; the tower was only deactivated an hour ago, and there's the job interview tomorrow. With the baby in their room she feels somewhat calmer. But his birth has brought no peaceful sense of things fitting into place, just an overarching, irrepressible panic.

The thought, morbid and unbidden, encroaches; that at least if one of them... if anything happens, there'll always be part of them living on, in the shape of Ulrich's mouth, the colour of Yumi's eyes.

And she'll try to cultivate a world around him that makes sense, even though their own doesn't.


	41. Future Odd

**Prompt: Future Odd  
><strong>_A/N: In appreciation of lemonsdarling and her delightful headcanons._

**/**

He was a hero once.

He's reminiscing when she tugs at his leg, and he takes in the tan, troubled face and purplish-black hair; the silver-lining of hard times, a beautiful complication.

"Can't reach," she pouts, straining towards the counter to emphasise her point.

He hands her the cookie jar, fondness swelling in him at her grateful smile, then the delighted squeal as he spins her around. Later, the tight, appreciative hug when he tucks her in and her wide-eyed wonder at his stories of the old days.

He was a hero once.

Maybe, just maybe, he still is.


	42. Ice

**Prompt: Ice**  
><em>Odd, William<em>

_/_

It hurts most deeply the winter after.

It's the factory being destroyed he thinks, the supercomputer with it; those last vestiges of darkness which cling to him (whispers of '_you are XANA'_ that never really go away) ache like icy chill settling into his bones as the first powdery snowfall adorns his hair.

He stands by the river, trembling.

Footsteps sound suddenly in time with panting breath; William feels the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, and-

"Hey! You forgot your gloves."

He's faced with a grin, a blur of purple knit.

The chill lessens, just a little.


	43. Invigorate

**Prompt: Invigorate  
><strong>_Laura, William_

**/**

Laura's head is spinning; supercomputers, warriors, virtual worlds... she's in love with the sheer incredibility of it. Already the secret revives her dull world.

William scrutinises her through eyes dark and serious. She clings stubbornly to the elation bubbling inside her, yet she fidgets as the elevator rises.

"You don't know what you're getting into," he says, head bent close to hers, voice no more than a whisper. Implicit in his tone is the warning.

_Get out. While you still can._

"It's amazing. An adventure," she replies.

Fresh-faced and bright-eyed, Laura walks away.

He watches her go, silent.


	44. Diplomatic Immunity

**Prompt: Diplomatic Immunity  
><strong>_A/N: Thanks Stonecreek for the prompt. And no, I don't know what this is, either._

**/**

"Jérémie, it's _incredible_! Technology so ahead of its time, I-"

"Yes, I know, but please Ma'am, we must hurry. Follow Aelita, she'll show you what to do."

He couldn't believe it had come to this as Suzanne Hertz entered the forest, small cannon slung over one shoulder; facing down a monster army with rage they hadn't seen since the entire class (Jérémie excluded) failed the midterm.

"So you're the one terrorising my students?" she shouted to the virtual sky. "I don't care if this is your world, XANA. I'm here now. We do things _my_ way."


	45. Symphony

**Prompt: Symphony**

**/**

Nicholas dreams in music.

To him, Sissi is drums; she counts them in, thrashes wildly, everything happening at once from snare to cymbal. Relentless percussion, (beauty in chaos). Hervé is a flute: reedy and whistling clear, cutting through, (drowned out), always there, ready to pipe up again. Nicholas himself is the French horn, (soothing and mellow), simple, consistent.

Together they clash; clamorous, discordant, off-beat.

And yet, sometimes, they all come together, each playing their part as they should, rising up as a whole so much greater than the sum of its parts.

Then, they are a symphony,

Vibrant, hopeful, harmonious.


	46. Before And After

**Prompt: Before And After**

_Sissi_

**/**

She stares at the bottle for a long time.

This shouldn't be so _significant_ she tells herself, but it is. She knew she'd do it eventually, when the time was right. Change is good.

Afterwards when her hair is dry she shakes it out from the towel like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. She practises sweeping it over her shoulder; practises, too, the smile that will go with it. It's a good look, she concedes. New. Better.

He's always liked dark-haired girls.

The blonde girl, who stares back at her from the bathroom mirror, doesn't care. Not any more.


	47. Justice

**Prompt: Justice**

/

This entire world is a crime scene but let us present two especially significant pieces of evidence: Exhibit A, a victim of circumstance who cannot personally testify.

What's that? Photographs? Aren't these fading footprints in the snow enough?

_Objection-_

Denied!

Exhibit B, wrongfully imprisoned, subject to terrible personal theft. Stolen memories, another investigation altogether. Shouldn't the defendant at least be held accountable for collateral damage?

Doing his best? For whom, we ask. How do you plead?

_...Guilty._

Life in the Digital Sea- by his own volition, no less than he deserves.

No jury on Earth could impose a greater sentence.


	48. Candy Hearts

**Prompt: Candy Hearts**

/

The complete ruination of Jim Moralés date was entirely their fault.

Even without the XANA attack, one which meant that Jérémie would be walking with a limp for the rest of the week whilst Aelita tried to explain away the singed edges of her hair, it was because of them that Jim never got around to dinner with Yolande.

All things considered, a box of candy hearts left anonymously on his desk (and the implicit suggestion of a secret admirer) wasn't a big enough apologetic gesture. But it was long after the fourteenth before the smile on his face faded.


	49. Hide and Seek

**Prompt: Hide and Seek  
><strong>_The Ishiyamas_**  
><strong>

/

Her hands are clamped over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, as though the world can't see her if she can't see it. It's only when her head starts to ache that she lets go. The first thing she's aware of is that they're still shouting, the second thing, that she's lost him.

She turns the house upside down until the search leads her to his room, a quiet sniffling to under the bed, where she crawls in the dark amongst the dust and clasps his hand across tear-soaked carpet.

They hide there until it all goes away, until next time.


	50. Landmark

**Prompt: Landmark**

/

"Laser arrow!"

"Odd, this is not a good use of Lyoko training time. You'll run out of arrows, and-"

"XANA needs something to remember us by, Einstein!"

"What-"

Ulrich's hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he kept watch, unable to hide his grin as Odd artistically carved up the cliff-face.

"Don't ask, Jéremie. Wow, if Franz Hopper could see this..."

"I bet he'd love it. Ta da!"

He stepped back from his own likeness, chipped with laser arrow-fire out of virtual rock.

"I call it Mount Oddmore."

"You're an idiot."


	51. Release

**Prompt: Release**

/

William wasn't quite sure when it happened, only that on the anniversary of the day they shut down the supercomputer he found himself on the phone, making excuses.

They were hurt, he knew - missing the reunion simply wasn't _done_ - but he'd grown tired of dredging up memories. It seemed unfair, when he otherwise worked so hard to press them down.

He claimed sickness that year. Then work commitments. After that, he simply stopped showing up.

They called, emailed. He sent out one last message.

_Let me go._

And because they loved him, and on some level they understood, they did.


	52. Future Ulrich

**Prompt: Future Ulrich**

**/**

"I never wanted to let you down, y'know."

...

"Yeah, I know. It can't have been easy for you when I was growing up. And then- after, when I couldn't deal."

...

"You wouldn't have understood, honestly."

...

"I saved the world, Dad. But you'd have been prouder if I got straight As."

…

"Don't deny it."

...

"I am sorry, though. Next time I see you we'll talk more, okay?"

…

"There's never enough time, is there. But I've really got to go now. Here, I brought you these."

Ulrich walks away slowly. The flowers rustle morosely against stone.


	53. Bedtime Stories

**Prompt: Bedtime Stories  
><strong>_Anthea_

**/**

There was safety in routine, if nothing else.

Truthfully, she had forgotten everything Franz told her when the moment finally arrived; months of mental preparation, how she'd run, or else kick, scream, even bite and scratch if she had to, were lost to her, white-hot panic wiping her mind blank as she was bundled into a car and swept away.

The cell was cold, colder even than the snow. They'd left her with nothing, only thoughts of how right now she should be telling Aelita a bedtime story.

Hoarsely, she spoke instead into the silence.

"Once upon a time..."


	54. Core

**Prompt: Core**

**/**

They didn't recognise each other from the back. Her dreadlocks were long gone in lieu of a short, sleek bob, his hair no longer stiff with copious amounts of gel. There were clues though; how she rubbed her elbow, where he knew a scar had formed long ago, and the way he threw back his head when he laughed (and how he never quite ended his love affair with the colour purple).

They crossed the room, meeting in the middle with raised eyebrow and flirtatious grin, and despite thirty years' worth of differences, they _knew_.

Some people never really change.


	55. Franz

**Prompt: Franz**

**/**

Aelita sat at her father's chair with his favourite mug, filled with orange juice instead of coffee. The lab coat she wore draped around her, the sleeves reaching long past her tiny arms, and the plastic glasses were fake, without lenses, an old Hallowe'en memento.

Her fringe fell into her eyes and she swept it away impatiently, only for the soft pink strands to tumble back over her face. Despite this, she smiled, mischievous and gap-toothed.

Franz, who had asked his daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up, laughed for the first time in a long while.


	56. Sick

**Prompt: Sick**

**/**

"Y'know, this reminds me of the time when-"

"I know what you're going to say, Jim Moralés, and so help me, if that sentence so much as leaves your mouth I'll sprain your _other_ ankle to match."

He shrunk meekly onto the bed, gaze drifting towards the swell of Yolande's chest which, given she was leaning directly over him with swathes of bandage in hand, was proving difficult to avoid.

"But-" she added, with a coy upward twist of her mouth, "you can regale me with any number of those stories over dinner. If you like."


	57. Puzzle

**Prompt: Puzzle**

**/**

Christopher M'Bala had been struggling with his Rubix cube for weeks. Hunched over his desk, headphones clamped over his ears, he worked and reworked the little plastic cube with progress coming inch by frustrating slow inch.

When William plucked it out of his hand one day and solved it instantly, Chris' jaw dropped.

"But- Dude, _how_?"

The clone shrugged. Simple applied mathematics were integral to his programming.

"What is _up_ with you?"

"Uh... The sky is up, if that's what you mean."

Christopher's mouth formed a soundless 'oh', before he threw up his hands and walked away.


	58. Capture

**Prompt: Capture  
><strong>_A/N: I always had this weird idea that XANA and Yumi formed a sort of Guardian-based connection during 'Image Problem' which lead to her being the focus of so many attacks. I'll never write it, so have a very condensed drabble version._

**/**

It surrounds her like fire, she prone in its centre, limp as a marionette with its strings cut. For one amazing moment she _is_ Lyoko; a connection so deep that it thrums in every fibre of her virtualised body, her subconscious mind, her very soul.

The flawed Guardian holds her prisoner, too much of XANA poured into it.

And Yumi _sees_.

She sees everything-

_(FranzHopperAelitaScyphozoaPossessionReplikasCarth ageCortexShutdown)_

_-_and then, nothing.

The only option, XANA surmises in its own coldly logical way, is to make sure she never remembers.

_Primary target: identified._

(Fate, sealed.)


	59. Gift

**Prompt: Gift**_  
><em>

**/**

"Happy birthday!"

Odd presented the box with a flourish, nudging it against Sissi's folded arms.

"It's not my birthday," she said flatly.

Odd was undeterred; he took her hands, freeing one and pressing the box into it anyway.

"I knew that." He winked at her. "But I saw it, and thought of you."

She felt herself begin to blush.

"Perhaps you're not such a terrible boyfriend after all, Della Robbia."

"Trust me," Ulrich called from across the room, "Come your real birthday, you'll be getting rubber ducks along with the rest of us."


	60. Rush

**Prompt: Rush**_  
><em>

**/**

They would never know why, would put it down to nostalgia of the worst kind, a constant dissatisfaction with a world that was empty and safe. It manifested itself in silly things; unnecessary dodging through traffic, increasingly volatile pranks.

Skydiving, kayaking, extreme risks and extreme sports.

They would never know why, as they never found the error Franz Hopper hadn't fixed. A side-effect of the scanners, a rush of endorphins at each virtualisation. A high that turned visits to Lyoko into a slow drug.

Lyoko went. The craving remained.

They would spend their whole lives in pursuit of that rush.


	61. A Stitch in Time

**Prompt: A Stitch in Time**_  
><em>

**/**

Waldo had grown up with a grandmother who taught him how to sew on long, parent-less weekends, and when he had taught Anthea, she took the skill up with marked enthusiasm. What began with repairing the odd tear soon became embroidery, cross-stitch, pattern-cutting.

"I should start getting ahead now," she had said once with deliberate casualness. "It'll be so nice to be able to make clothes for my own baby."

Waldo spluttered, red faced.

"You're _not_-"

When he looked up, only to find her biting down a laugh, he scowled.

She winked at him.

"Just teasing."


	62. Spiral

**Prompt: Spiral**

**/**

Odd is unpredictable, has the complete inability to stay in one place for too long, to be doing the same thing for any extended length of time. When momentum slows, he veers in another direction, throws himself headlong into the next thing that comes his way. When there's nothing coming he seeks something out and chases it; either way, Odd's life lacks - as Ulrich put it, with a hint of something treading the line between scathing and concern - consistency.

Odd (chaotic, directionless) spirals and spirals, feet skidding as cold reality takes him places he doesn't want to go.


	63. Finale

**Prompt: Finale  
><strong>_A/N: I vaguely remember Jérémie backing up Lyoko on a single disc once. The idea amuses me.**  
><strong>_

**/**

During the summer, Mrs Belpois held a garage sale.

Distracted by someone haggling over DVDs, she barely noticed the boy rummaging through her son's unsorted things. He bought two boxes of supposedly blank discs (two euros, fifty cents) and what remained of Lyoko became lost forever in favour of a bunch of burned discs and movies.

It hardly mattered any more, of course. Jérémie didn't even find out until his visit a month later. Grief pierced his face, then vanished in a sigh.

Some things, even great ones, just end, and it is unceremonious when they do.


	64. Clones

**Prompt: Clones**  
><em>(William's, Jérémie's, Yumi's)<em>

**/**

It was cramped in the small space between CARTHAGE dot exe and the Skidbladnir's programme files, even more so when William showed up. He sat in the corner, oblivious to the glares his two new companions gave him.

Jérémie towered over him, just about. "What're you doing here, hotshot?"

William's expression remained blank. "There is no temperature here. In fact-"

He blinked as a loose strand of binary code bounced off his forehead.

"Whatever. This is our private time." Jérémie turned to Yumi. "Right, sweetcheeks?"

She glared, and growled, mumbling something about scanner rooms under her breath.


	65. Blood

**Prompt: Blood**

**/**

There was so much of it.

Ulrich rung out his shirt, face blank as he eyed the droplets falling around the sink. His pain showed not in words, but in the awkward tilt of his shoulder, how tightly his hands twisted the fabric, how long it took the water to run clear.

It was the first time she had seen blood. Aelita watched with fascination as it congealed, splatters turning dry-brown like rust.

He didn't look like a warrior, then. He was just... human.

And now she was too, she realised, and just as vulnerable as the rest of them.


	66. Crowns

**Prompt: Crowns  
><strong>_Aelita  
><em>

**/**

Once, head wreathed in flowers, in lands where the tides rose to meet her and the mountains fell at her feet, she was queen. The world, equal parts haunting and beautiful, ultimate playground for the eternal child, was hers.

She left that world behind, becoming reunited with crowns she had forgotten. Blissfully mortal, she wore paper adorned with ink scrawls; the land yielded, soft, beneath her toes, and her face was peppered with glitter and kisses.

But these crowns tore in the rain, the shadows lengthened and swallowed her own, and she bowed beneath the weight of fragile, material things.


	67. Victory

**Prompt: Victory  
><strong>_Yumi, Odd**  
><strong>_

**/**

She respected him, of course, he was a competent warrior and reliable comrade even if under no other circumstances would they be friends in a million years. Deceptively fast (those scrawny legs!) and strong (when facing death, his laughter rang loudest). Quick wit, sharp tongue.

He was, in many ways, a worthy challenge.

She ached to wade beneath the surface layers, push past that unshakeable countenance. She wanted to see him blush.

When was it that the idea of beating Odd came to have the same thrill as that of kissing Ulrich? Yumi didn't know, and found she didn't mind.


	68. Spider Web

**Prompt: Spider Web**_**  
><strong>_

**/**

It closed over his face and he could not breathe.

A palm of the softest skin, grasping out of the darkness. It clung mercilessly, shaping itself to the contours of his nose and cheeks and straining towards his parted lips, which opened yet wider, against all sense, in a cry of surprise.

Ulrich batted the web away and the curled, wiry husk of a spider drifted helplessly to the floor.

"Argh! Stupid-"

Odd leaned against the sewer wall, giddy with laughter, their mission and terror momentarily forgotten.

"After everything we've just been through, you're freaked out by that?"

"Shut up!"


	69. Silence

**Prompt: Silence**_**  
><strong>_

**/**

"Anything?"

Aelita's hands clasped Jérémie's shoulders, their eyes fixed to the computer. Creases worried his brow, a semi-permanent fixture but one he seldom noticed, barely glancing at himself as he tugged a comb through his hair each morning. Now Jérémie saw his own face quite clearly, reflected at him in the mirrored blankess of the screen.

XANA had disappeared.

Jérémie shook his head, a lethargic response to Aelita's question.

"What does it mean?"

He could not answer. It remained a mystery without closure, a cheap, abrupt end to everything.

An open-ended, subtly torturous silence.


	70. Persevere

**Prompt: Persevere**_**  
><strong>_

**/**

The world is full of struggles. Some are vast, taking place across whole countries, if not worlds; many more occur in the daily threads of people's lives.

Tamiya Diop pored over her textbooks, tangled thoughts undercut with a single mantra: _I will not fail maths._

A towering pile of sentient food terrorising Kadic would not reach her notice for another ninety seconds. Between it and the present moment stood one stubborn algebra problem.

When the crisis was over, she would sit down and complete it. When the crisis turned out not to have happened, she would complete it, laboriously, again.


	71. Cold

**Prompt: Cold  
><strong>_AN: December and January will be busy months, so I wanted to stop by and get a quick, sort-of-festive drabble in. I may write a few more, time permitted next week. My New Year's resolution is to find time to work on the other stuff. Happy holidays, folks. :)__**  
><strong>_

**/**

It had snowed for three days straight at Kadic, a fact which delayed the busy commute home for the Christmas season, but for once XANA wasn't to blame.

"Hibernating, probably," laughed Jérémie. "Can't say I blame it."

A snowflake settled gently on his nose, and a crude snowball hit the back of his neck moments later. Spluttering, he turned to see Odd, Ulrich, Yumi and even Aelita with their hands behind their backs and innocent whistles on their lips. Jérémie's shoulders slumped.

How had he agreed to being dragged outdoors, again? He sighed and wished for hot chocolate.


	72. Life's A Game

**Prompt: Life's A Game**

/

It's the worst game she's ever played and she has a poor hand, but that doesn't mean Yumi gets to quit. Virtualisation is like diving underwater; the rushing in her ears, the way the world changes around her as colours darken and textures blur into one. Lasers fire before she's even landed. Yumi does what she can before her fan disintegrates, hand shattering into pixels.

She draws shuddering breaths, life rushing back to her in a tumult of scrabbling fingers and rapid heartbeats. Relief makes her giddy, and her friend's faces bright with victory remind her why she keeps playing.


	73. Mouthwash

**Prompt: Mouthwash  
><strong>_A/N: Apparently it's really good for this kind of thing.  
><em>

/

Cuts and scrapes were routine on the Earth side of a XANA attack. Slightly less usual was Sissi's presence, and accidentally hiding in poison ivy, well… that was a first for Aelita. Her arms itched, skin swollen and inflamed.

"Here," said Sissi briskly, and in moments was dabbing mouthwash from a travel-sized bottle over her skin. The relief was so immense Aelita almost burst into tears.

It occurred to her that Sissi would be a good Lyoko warrior because when she wasn't busy freaking out, she thought of everything. Plus she managed to fit it all into that tiny handbag.


	74. Blink

**Prompt: Blink**

**/**

A misfired laser arrow. A harsh word. A kind one. A declaration of love; a response, good or bad. An eye, _changing_. A body, falling. A hand forming a fist. Glasses catching the light. A mistyped key. Revelations. Tears. Life and death; the topple from the thin line in between. A choice to do better. A choice to lie, to cheat, steal, pretend, fight, run. Ideas. Inspiration. Smiles. The ticking of one second on important clocks. The push of a button. Reputations, made or broken. Things lost, found. Remembered.

A lot can happen in the time it takes to blink.


	75. Christmas

**Prompt: Christmas**

**/**

"How XANA Stole Christmas" started as a joke, a shrug of the shoulders and the hope of better timing next year, but after three years of interrupted festivities it began to wear thin. Odd decided (of course it was Odd, with Aelita the first to agree) that they should simply celebrate the Christmas holidays in June, instead.

Ulrich drew the line at singing any Christmas songs, but couldn't say no to the unseasonal trading of gifts. They made a small paper tree, strung tinsel over every available surface in Jérémie's room, and ate mince pies with the air conditioning on.


	76. New

**Prompt: New**

**/**

Aelita's new thing was piercings.

There was no change in attitude to accompany this development. No teenage moody rebellion, no thrill of defying parents - something she was sad to miss out on, if truth be told - and no one singular celebrity role model. Just the glint of metal and needle-rush of pain adrenaline that had her stumbling from the tattoo parlour flushed and giddy, admiring each new adornment in her compact mirror.

Nose, eyebrow, belly button - and one nostalgic red sphere shot through her upper right ear, because as much as Aelita liked new things, she never forgot her roots.


	77. Tiddlywinks

**Prompt: Tiddlywinks  
><strong>_A/N: Episode #60, 'Temporary Insanity'. As prompted, many moons ago, by Starke.  
><em>

**/**

She got caught in the web; one of a small few who shifted just outside the trappings of time, looking upon the white light with wonder, confusion, fear... with eyes and mind that couldn't forget.

The strain was too much for someone of her age. She spent her last months hospital-bound, waiting for the next white wave to crash, to shake the very foundations of reality beneath her feet as the world reset itself.

When it did, she clutched her blankets about her chin, upended the board on her lap, watched the colourful plastic counters bounce and fall, bounce and fall.


	78. Future Yumi

**Prompt: Future Yumi**_  
><em>

**/**

Yumi had spent much of her youth imagining futures for herself; she found it as good a way as any of coping with the present. Martial arts, writing, military. Family, friends, Ulrich.

She knew her own mind, compared and contrasted it quietly to the others and their dreams of grandeur. In the end, career and education and family and escapism wound themselves neatly around one another, mapping the flow of a life well-lived with its normal ups and downs. It was quite remarkable, in its own way.

It was easy, after a long time, to forget that Lyoko ever existed.


	79. Playtime

**Prompt: Playtime**_  
><em>

**/**

It was quiet.

Little more sound than the click of computer keys and the occasional sigh. Always, Franz kept an ear out for the sound that would be conspicuous in its absence, that of soft giggles and mumbled nonsense which marked Aelita's childhood games.

Franz smiled. He couldn't begin to work it out, just knew that there were dolls, Mister Puck and building blocks involved.

"...And now Mr Puck, you can save the day by unplugging the doomsday machine!"

Franz almost upended his coffee.

"Aelita darling, don't touch Daddy's-"

A muscle in his jaw twitched as his screen went black.


	80. Possession, 1

**Prompt: Possession  
><strong>_(1)__  
><em>

**/**

Hervé blinks, and then he disappears.

He is vaguely aware of himself, but it's as though he was sitting at the very front of a movie theatre and now finds himself moved to the back; there is that same sense of gaining a better sense of the bigger picture whilst losing some of the detail.

Hervé is sitting in class and Mrs Hertz has just asked a question. He tries to raise his hand, feels a rush of fear as it remains unresponsive on his desk.

His reflection in the window glass is faint and unfamiliar. He cannot even speak.


	81. Possession, 2

**Prompt: Possession  
><strong>_(2)__  
><em>

**/**

No true image exists to represent what has happened within his own mind, which, in its desperation for context, creates its own: a wall, black and impenetrable. If he can only break through, on the other side he is certain lies the key to regaining his own consciousness.

But the false Hervé, the one out there, acts- Hervé feels the tension in his muscles, the ache in his involuntarily clenched jaw.

He didn't know he was capable of such strength as his body now commands.

Didn't know he could look at these people and do these things.

Yet, he does.


	82. Possession, 3

**Prompt: Possession  
><strong>_(3)__  
><em>

**/**

When it is over, everything leaves him.

Strength, words... even his glasses lie just out of reach on the floor, mocking muscles so fatigued that, though no longer controlled, can barely move an inch. They're broken anyway, Hervé realises numbly. But there is too much glass on the floor for one pair of prescription lenses, and that's when he senses the breeze creeping in from a dozen smashed windows.

And thinks,

_(I did this,_

_But I didn't)_

The foreign presence is already fading without adequate words to describe it.

His mind, in a bid to rescue him, lets it go.


	83. Future Sissi

**Prompt: Future Sissi**_  
><em>

**/**

Although she wasn't on the way to Hollywood any time soon, and her life was nowhere near as glamorous as she thought it would be, Sissi Delmas found that she was happy: she could pay the rent doing what she loved, and could afford to buy new shoes almost as often as she wanted.

The best part, though, was stepping offstage after a performance and melting out of character, seeing her fellow actors do the same and knowing that the smiles and compliments were real, with no hidden agenda underneath. High school was a million miles away from real life.


	84. Family

**Prompt: Family**_  
><em>

**/**

Jean-Pierre practically lives at his desk, but he's honed the art of paying attention and knows every student by face, if not name; the quiet ones, the troublemakers, the ones long gone.

Suzanne's job covers everything from organising to grading... and extra tuition for those who need it but are afraid to ask.

Yolande sees students at their worst, snot-nosed, tearful. She keeps their feverish confessions close to her chest.

Jim makes everyone laugh; sometimes purely for the benefit of students having a bad day.

There's something to be said for seeing people every day, and growing to love them.


	85. Meta

**Prompt: Meta  
><strong>_AN: A full-length fic of this concept exists in one of my notebooks. Fortunately for you all, it will never see the light of day.  
><em>

/

Jérémie received the disc in the mail. No note, no postmark.

"Some trick of XANA's, maybe?"

"Only one way to to find out."

They crowded around his laptop and pressed 'play'. At first they were confused. Music started up and flashing images appeared: school grounds, a virtual world. A girl with pink hair, an older Ulrich's doppelganger. Someone who could have been Sissi, were she not blonde.

And a title screen- "Code Lyoko: Evolution".

"Lyoko is evolving? Into what?"

"Ssh Einstein, we're trying to watch!"

"Hey, that girl looks kinda like Yumi."

"Nah, her forehead is way too small."

"ODD!"


	86. Distance

**Prompt: Distance**

**/**

Milly's an only child, Tamiya only has step-siblings. At Kadic, they found sisters in one another, as well as friends.

In Odd, Ulrich, Jérémie and Yumi they found something like the other family they had lost; four cooler, older faces filling a hard-to-reach void. Tamiya could see herself going to Yumi and Jérémie for advice, Odd and Ulrich glaring intimidatingly at potential boyfriends.

Everything changed in October.

Even Odd doesn't talk much these days; they've withdrawn into themselves, like the rest of the world doesn't matter any more.

If that's what growing up is, Tamiya isn't sure she wants it.


	87. Fortress

**Prompt: Fortress  
><strong>_A/N: Ain't nothing wrong with a little ol' shameless fantasy AU._

**/**

Jérémie landed hard on his knees, clasping his glasses instinctively to his face. A guard, scaly-footed, pressed him to the ground. It was smooth, he noted, but gave the illusion of sand.

"What brings you to Lyokostros?" asked a high, clear voice. From his crouched position Jérémie saw a pink-slippered foot, one lean leg wrapped in baggy cloth and silk ribbons. She seemed too dainty for this place, the fortress more prison than protection.

Pain clouded his memory, distorted his sense of purpose.

It hardly mattered though, did it? A peasant before royalty was hardly going to change the world.


	88. Future William

**Prompt: Future William**

**/**

He fled France as soon as he was able, passed up one final summer in his grandmother's chateau in exchange for the rain-flecked streets of Britain and the chance of no one knowing his name. People jostled him in the streets, cashiers gave him his change with empty smiles. The sense of isolation clung to William like thick smog, wrapped his chest so tightly that he found it difficult to breathe. Restlessness fought endlessly with exhaustion.

The faces and the language were different, but it all boiled down to the same thing. The person William couldn't escape from was himself.


	89. Fun House

**Prompt: Fun House  
><strong>

**/**

He's utterly charming and it disgusts her. Yumi can handle it in small doses, but up close like this with his hand against her face and his megawatt smile it's as overpowering as that ridiculous cologne he wears. Getting mixed up with Odd has been all at once everything and none of what she expected. She didn't think she'd laugh so much; now her smiles catch her off-guard in the mirror and she traverses mazes in pursuit of his bizarre trains of thought. Odd laughs, takes her hand, pulls her in. Yumi loses track of herself in smoke and mirrors.


	90. Possibilities

**Prompt: Possibilities**

_Aelita, Hervé, Nic, Sissi, Milly, Tamiya, Sam, Emilie. _

**/**

When she met them first:

Computers, science fair victories and pettiness. They stop being friends eventually.

She never really takes to fishing, but goes with him anyway, and learns the drums.

More makeup, better clothes, less friends. But she is never lonely.

The Kadic Herald never existed. Instead their time is spend on adventures, and almost as many arguments. They always make up in the end.

She grows her hair long, learns to skateboard in leather jackets and combat boots, and she is amazing at it.

She falls in love first, with a girl who worries about grades too much.


	91. He Who Laughs Last

**Prompt: He Who Laughs Last**

**/**

Odd was caught in the heat of the battle one moment, and gone the next.

A well-aimed shot from a Krabbe caught him on the shoulder, interrupting Odd's victory dance over the timely destruction of its partner. Odd's torso broke apart, the slow shattering of a virtual skeleton- his face cracked open, the grin frozen upon it splitting into blue and white lines as the fight grew blurry and distant.

He managed one final arrow. The sound of laughter echoed on Lyoko for a moment after he faded, then was lost in the explosion as the weapon hit its mark.


	92. Orientation

**Prompt: Orientation  
><strong>_The Monsters_

**/**

In peacetime they traverse Lyoko in packs and clans, leading their young carefully across rock and ice in search of wellsprings of data-nutrients to replenish their virtual bodies. The small ones click and chatter, stumble over tree stumps, learn to forage and thrive.

Their shrieks rent the air when the call goes out, when XANA's eye glows hot and venomous on their shells and skin, forces their clawed feet to march and their reluctant bodies to sliver. They are slaves to programming and malice, and the arrows and blades and fans are sharp, merciless in their assault, and never ending.


	93. Et tu, Brute?

_A/N: This doesn't feel complete, but I think the lack of closure fits with the overall theme of the drabble. Maybe. Writer's block is no fun._

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: Et tu, Brute?<br>**_OddxSissi_

/

"But... why? We're perfect. We've- I've been so happy."

Sissi grasps at Odd's shoulders, faltering as he turns away. What can he tell her? It's too difficult to be with someone who isn't in on the secret. He's spent more time with her than she has with him, although that doesn't make sense. He saves the world only to live through the same days, the same conversations, the same kisses over and over. Even arguing is no fun when he knows exactly what she's going to say.

He never thought he'd be the one to hurt her, not like this.


	94. Abstract

**Prompt: Abstract**

**/**

_transfer, scanner, virtualisation_

and the rush of wind and the hum of the scanner fighting one another to roar in his ears, snatching up the strands of his hair and his shortening breath

there is bright white light and a painless breaking

a seamless sliding as everything that is him vibrates further and further apart and everything else fills up the gaps in between, until there is no him and no everything else

there simply _is_

otherwise he would try to reach out, touch the universe between universes, in this strange and fathomless transition from one world to the next


	95. Choice

**Prompt: Choice**

**/**

When the fight goes on for years it only gains momentum, pulling a slew of other struggles with it. University, internships, jobs. Outside circumstances that push them all closer together, so close they drown in each other, a mess of clumsy hearts and blurred, tangled lines.

And then.

The test (positive, of course) sits in Aelita's hands, but it feels like all of them. So much potential... for life, family, the eye in the hurricane of their chaos. They're thinking names, toys, clothes.

But.

"I can't be pregnant," says Aelita. "I need to fight."

They hate how much she's right.


	96. Useful

**Prompt: Useful**

**/**

Jim is balancing on a stool in the cafeteria, screwing in a new lightbulb.

"Here, take this-"

Sissi blinks and catches the old bulb as he throws it down. When Jim starts on the broken window, she drops her magazine and follows him, watches with guarded curiosity as he rummages through his toolbox.

He asks her to pass him a screwdriver, then explains about the different types.

She pretends she's too cool for him, but by the time the holidays are over she's learned how to sew on buttons, use a circular saw and hot-wire a car, amongst other things.


End file.
